Friday, March 3, 2017
LACEY, Wash. – The Western Washington women’s basketball team advanced to its sixth GNAC Championships final in seven years with a 73-61 victory over No. 6 Central Washington on Friday at Marcus Pavilion thanks to a record-breaking performance by the Vikings’ senior guard Taylor Peacocke.
Western Washington took control of the semifinal contest with a 13-2 run during the second half after there were 11 lead changes the game was tied seven times.
The Vikings stumbled at this point last year, causing an abrupt end to their season and a five-year streak of GNAC championship game appearances, but Peacocke made sure there was no repeat in her senior season. The GNAC Player of the Year broke the tournament record for field goals made in a single game with 14 and tied the single-game scoring record with 34. Peacocke also tied the GNAC record for field goal attempts with 23.
It was Peacocke’s fourth 30-plus point game this season senior Tia Briggs added 16 points and five rebounds for the Vikings (25-4), ending the Wildcats’ Cinderella story run to the semifinals after a 3-10 start to conference play.
Central Washington’s senior point guard Jasmin Edwards wrapped up her career with a record-breaking of her own with a tournament record 10 assists, helping three of her teammates score in double digits. Korney Grattic and Rachel Lorentson each recorded 12 points to go along with 10 points by Sadie Mensing.
The Vikings went on a 13-2 run that started late in the third quarter with a pair of Kiana Gandy free throws and ended in a 64-51 lead for the No. 2 seed. During the run, Peacocke scored a 3-pointer, jumper and lay-up to go along with an assist to Briggs, accounting for nine of the points during the run.
It was the Vikings third win against Central Washington this season and is part of a run of 19 wins in the last 20 games. The lone loss in that run was a double-overtime defeat to undefeated GNAC regular season champion Alaska Anchorage, which could be Western Washington’s next opponent. Western Washington will be awaiting the winner of No. 1 Alaska Anchorage and No. 5 Seattle Pacific in the conference championship game at 5:15 p.m. on Saturday in Lacey, Wash.
Peacocke, the nation’s leader in scoring average coming into the tournament, now has 680 points this year, which is just 12 points shy of the GNAC record set in 2015 by Simon Fraser’s Erin Chambers.
As a team, the Vikings made 28 of 51 field goal attempts despite a cold afternoon from beyond the arc. The GNAC’s leading team in free-throw percentage made 14 of 16 attempts from the charity stripe.